City panel approves downtown design guidelines

Published 12:00 am, Thursday, February 20, 2014

SAN ANTONIO — Addressing everything from building articulation and aesthetics to sustainability and public signage, a new set of downtown design guidelines gained approval from the Historic Design and Review Commission on Wednesday, paving the way for its consideration by the City Council for final approval.

“These guidelines would not affect any existing buildings,” said Mark Brodeur, the city's assistant director of planning and community development. “They would only affect new development as it comes forward, or significant — more than 50 percent — renovations on existing buildings.

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“There is a lot of vacant land for development downtown, and over the next five years, it will be redeveloped. We want to make sure we get good design and good architecture and that downtown's authenticity is protected.

“New buildings can be contemporary,” he added, “but they must be respectful of downtown's authentic architecture. This document does that.”

A movement to create design guidelines for downtown — bordered roughly by Interstates 10 and 37 on the west and east, and Interstate 35 and César Chávez Boulevard on the north and south — began when the 1997 City of San Antonio Master Plan Policies established a goal to enhance the city's urban form.

“Many areas of downtown are not in a historic district and so do not fall under design review,” Brodeur said. “You have developers getting permits for buildings with no review of a building's scale or detail.”

Brodeur said the new design guidelines would “emphasize the pedestrian realm.”

“A person on the street doesn't relate to a building at its 35th floor, so we've paid special attention to the ground floors of buildings,” he said.

In addition to architectural detail, areas the downtown design guidelines focus on include: